8th Grade Science Fair
Nails for Breakfast?!
Did you know we eat nails for breakfast? Well, not exactly the nails that we hammer down, but did you know our cereals contain iron? Iron is an essential part of our body. It plays many roles inside of us, like how it supplies red blood cells with oxygen. In this experiment, we will be testing five different cereals for their amount of iron. When doing your background research, look up what the iron in our food is for.
Creating your hypothesis
Which of the five cereals do you think will contain the most iron in it? Write your hypothesis based off your predictions.
Defining Variables
What is your independent variable-- the thing that you changed in the experiment? Think of all the materials we are using. Which one of them do we keep changing?
What is your dependent variable-- what you are measuring as a result from this experiment? Think about this experiment is testing for. What are we trying to measure?
What are your controlled variables-- the things that remains the same every time? Think of the steps you repeat or the items you constantly use. What are the things we keep the same and don’t change in the experiment?
Materials
1. 5 different cereals
2. 5 cow magnets (purchasable from amazon here: https://amzn.to/2xMcx0V)
3. Blender
4. Plastic spoon
5. 4 plastic cup or a glass
6. Timer
7. Sharpie
8. Measuring cup
9. Distilled water
10. Kitchen scale (I recommend one that reads less than a gram for precise measurements https://amzn.to/2zriiTU)
Procedure
1. Measure the cow magnet’s initial mass. Be sure to take note of it
2. Label the 5 cups a different cereal
3. Measure 1 cup of each cereal
4. Measure 1 cup of water (will be used for each cereal)
5. Using a blender, keep blending 1 cup of every type of cereal along with 1 cup of water until you’ve blended all the five different cereals. Blend for about 30 seconds. Be sure to equally blend the five cereals the exact amount of time
6. Pour each cereal and water mix into its’ designated cup. Stir each cup for 3 minutes. Be sure to mix all 5 cereals for exactly 3 minutes so everything is equal. Use a plastic spoon for stirring, do not use a regular spoon which may contain metal. Clean the spoon before stirring cereal to cereal
7. Drop a magnet in all five cups for 30 minutes. Again, be sure to keep timings equal
8. Afterwards, carefully take out each magnet from the cup. Record your observations. Keep track of the magnets and the cereal it came from
9. Individually weigh each magnet now. Record each magnet’s weight along with the cereal it was from
Conclusion
How did the magnets’ initial weight contrast from the magnets’ weights after the experiment? What did observe on the magnet’s when you took them out? How did the weights differentiate from cereal to cereal, and which cereal’s magnet was the heaviest? Was your hypothesis proven correct or incorrect by the experiment?
Disclaimer: This science fair project idea is inspired from allthingsthrifty , and I especially thought the idea was AMAZING! So also take a look at theirs at here.
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